The present invention relates, in general, to audio-visual teaching machines, and more particularly to a compact, inexpensive, rugged machine which has an improved mechanical assembly and improved optics for simplified operation and better reliability.
The uses of audio-visual devices in entertainment, commercial, and educational fields are well recognized, and such devices are in great demand. Because recent developments have produced lightweight, portable, easy to use machines, they have become very popular, particularly for use with the educationally disadvantaged, and in developing countries. Such uses, however, place a premium on reliability and low cost, on the ability of a machine to handle a wide variety of functions for more effective teaching and testing of students, on ease of use, and on accuracy in the coordination of visual and audio information. If such machines are to respond to the wide variety of uses to which they may be placed, the machines must have a capability for producing a wide variety of visual displays and narrative sequences not only in response to predetermined teaching patterns, but in response to the patterns of answers produced by the user of the machine during testing and learning procedures.
Although prior machines have been capable of producing extremely useful displays and accompanying narration, such devices have been limited in the patterns and responses they can provide, primarily because of limitations in the mechanical structure and the control circuitry of such machines. The increased need for greater flexibility in establishing desired patterns and programs for instruction or testing, and the need to allow changes in existing patterns and procedures to permit machines to be updated to meet new techniques and series and to accommodate newly developed programs, is now recognized, however, and it is to meet these needs in an improved manner that the present invention was developed.
Typical of prior art machines is that described and illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,504,445 to Goldmark et al, issued Apr. 7, 1970. An improved version of the Goldmark device is disclosed in U.S. application Ser. No. 352,917, filed Feb. 26, 1982, entitled "Improved Audio-Visual Teaching Machine and Control System Therefor", which application is assigned to the assignee of the present application. The present invention is directed to improvements in the apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,482,328 issued Nov. 13, 1984 and accordingly the disclosure of that application is hereby incorporated by reference.